On College Football; Pro Coaches Returning to College Game for Control and Influence

By THOMAS GEORGE

Published: August 26, 2001

The natural order of progression for a football coach is the same as that for a football player -- dabble in Pop Warner leagues, shift to high school, gain entry into the college game and soar from there to the pros.

But what about the pro coach who moves to the college game?

It is becoming fashionable. It is less viewed as a downward career step. The college salaries have improved. The players are more impressionable, the fan base is revved and the game has its special color and pageantry. Oh, and the control factor. All football coaches love that.

''The biggest difference from being an N.F.L. head coach to a college one is now I'm in charge of everything, especially structure and personnel,'' said Pete Carroll, the new head coach at Southern Cal, who won a Super Bowl ring as a San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator, and who was a Jets and New England Patriots head coach. ''I am responsible for everything that happens here. I love that because in the pros, it was hard to share authority in those areas yet be totally accountable.''

So, Carroll, after a year off from the N.F.L, leapt to the colleges. Al Groh this season left the Jets for the University of Virginia. Joe Walton, the former Jets head coach, has led the Robert Morris College Colonials for the past seven years.

Hey, is this just a Jets thing? Actually not.

Bill Walsh, a three-time Super Bowl winner and Hall of Fame pro coach, retired as the San Francisco 49ers' head coach in 1989 and then three years later resurfaced as the Stanford head coach, a job he had previously in 1977 and 1978. Coaches in most circles revere Walsh. When he did that, it helped place a sense of respect for the career move that had been lacking before.

Now consider that the salaries are becoming similar -- a collegiate coach at a major program can easily earn $1 million a year, about the average for an N.F.L. head coach -- and the jump to the colleges is a more palatable one. Colleges want these coaches because frequently they bring a recognizable name and face to their programs. Collegiate players want these coaches because the coach just left the place where most of them dream to go.

''A guy who has coached in the N.F.L. does bring a certain exposure to the media,'' Carroll said. ''I mean, I've coached in New York and in New England, and that's about as hot as it can get with the media. From the players, I feel a little bit of intrigue and mystery from them. You try to connect with that in your coaching and in your recruiting.''

That is another reason a pro coach is more likely now to consider college coaching. With free agency and salary cap issues swirling around all N.F.L. teams, a pro coach often feels like a recruiter. He has to sway big-name free agents each year to consider his team, persuade his prime free agents to stay, and throughout the process accept turnover on his roster each year. Now, because of salary-cap restrictions that force younger and cheaper players onto his roster, he has to take rookie and first-year players and find ways for them to contribute immediately.

Veteran N.F.L. coaching legends like Chuck Noll, Tom Landry and Don Shula did not have to do that for their entire careers. Those guys coached in the same pro site for 20-plus years apiece and their philosophies and their players became entrenched in the franchise.

''So, the thinking is for some coaches is if I've got to do this now, why not do it on the college level?'' said Dom Capers, coach of the expansion Houston Texans, who will begin play next year. ''And think about the fact that the pro season is twice as long. Next year, we play 5 preseason games, 16 regular season games and if we make the playoffs, that's at least 22 games; the most a college team is usually going to play is 11 or 12 games. That makes it more appealing.''

Capers is in an unusual position now. Each day he is building to field his team for the 2002 N.F.L. season but some of his tasks are quite college-like: Three or four speeches a week to various groups in Houston, making other appearances to help sell stadium suites and season tickets and finding other creative ways to help keep support in Houston bubbling for the return of pro football.

But Capers has practice. From the early 1970's through 1983 he began his coaching career in college, as a graduate assistant coach at Kent State and then as an assistant at Washington, Hawaii, San Jose State, California, Tennessee and Ohio State before reaching the old United States Football League in 1984 and the N.F.L. in 1986. His first pro head coaching job was with the Carolina Panthers (1995 through 1998).

''A lot of coaches used to say that the reason they left college was because of the recruiting, that they just couldn't stand it,'' Capers said. ''When I was at Tennessee in '80 and '81, we would bring recruits in during the season, have them in for games and dinner, have breakfast with them the next morning, and you wouldn't even get to watch your game film until late that next afternoon. Then those kids could only sign an Southeastern Conference letter of intent; that protected them from other S.E.C. schools but not the other programs around the country. So, then, you had to recruit them all over again. The recruiting process has been streamlined, and that also makes the college job more appealing.''

It has to be refreshing for a former N.F.L. head coach to look into the face of a 19-year-old and see the pure merriment and joy of youth compared with staring into the face of a 33-year-old veteran who thinks he has seen it all and knows it all about the game. College football, for the most part, is about growth and maturation. Pro football, in essence, is about business.

''You simplify things in college and you teach with great flexibility,'' Capers said. ''You can see more directly how your influence changes lives. What football coach wouldn't want that?''

Photos: Al Groh quit as head coach of the Jets and returned to his alma mater, the University of Virginia, to be the head coach.; Pete Carroll, who has one Super Bowl ring, left the New England Patriots and became head coach at Southern California. (Photographs by Associated Press and Gary I. Rothstein for The New York Times, far left.)